A prowler might well have got into the penthouse apartment, found a gun while rummaging in the drawers, and used it on being surprised by the occupant. If he was wearing gloves, his prints would not be found. Prints are rarely found on guns, anyway, even when they’re handled without gloves on. Yes, I think we can play up the prowler theory very effectively.” Ashton McKell nodded, but his attention seemed elsewhere. Dane doubted that his father was thinking of prowlers, real or imagined, or of Sheila Grey as merely a “shrewd, clearheaded businesswoman.” Dane himself knew her as far more than that; what must his father know of her?

  And now she was dead, and no one’s guilt or innocence, no argument or theory, could change the fact for Ashton McKell.

  As for Barton, Dane thought he was whistling in the dark. His mother’s fingerprints on the blank shells and on two of the live ones would alone outweigh the heaviest prowler structure Barton could build up in argument.

  He took Barton aside. “I think my mother is mentally unstable,” he said quietly. “Isn’t that a better line of defense?” The lawyer looked at him sharply. “What makes you think your mother is of unsound mind?”

  “That story she tells about why she loaded the gun with live ammunition. That wasn’t an act, Mr. Barton, though I know you think it was - I was watching your face… I realize now that this has been coming on for a long time.”

  Barton shook his head. “I don’t see how we can effectively use it. It isn’t as if she admits having pulled the trigger… I think we have a better chance with the prowler line. Let the burden of proof rest on De Angelus.

  He hasn’t got as good a case as he apparently thinks he has. At least in my opinion. There’s a long, long step between proving that she loaded the gun and proving that she pulled the trigger, Mr. McKell. Now don’t worry. We can always pull in the psychiatrists as a secondary line of defense… “

  Dane remained unconvinced.

  * * *

  For all the ease with which Dane had accepted her in his arms at the climax of his father’s trial, Judy found their relations becoming more distant. She could not read his mind, but there was no mistaking the coldness of his manner. That moment in the courtroom began to appear an unguarded outpost in time, along with their previous embrace in her apartment. Could his mother’s predicament account for his increasing withdrawal? Judy wondered painfully. That could not be the only reason, even if it was a reason. Something else was bothering him. But what?

  Judy phoned him one night after a strained dinner at the McKells’.

  Dane had driven her home in almost total silence and left her abruptly.

  “Dane, this is Judy.”

  “Judy?”

  She waited. He waited. “Dane, I must know. What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong?”

  “Something is. You seem so… “

  He laughed. “My father’s been tried for murder, my mother is under arrest on the same charge - what could be wrong?”

  While Judy angrily blinked back the tears, she heard the connection broken. So she stumbled to bed.

  She did not phone him again, and when finally he phoned her she assumed a coldness to match his.

  “Yes, Dane.”

  “I’m just transmitting a message,” he said dully. “Dad and I talked to Ellery Queen a while ago, and he wants us to visit him tomorrow. Dad wants you along. Will you come?”

  “Of course.”

  She waited, but he said nothing more, and after a moment she hung up. His voice had never sounded so lifeless. The crazy thought struck her that they were all dead - Dane, his parents, Ellery Queen, herself - and that the only living entity in the universe was Sheila Grey. It made her hate Sheila Grey… That was when Judy gave way to her tears.

  * * *

  “Do you own shares in this hospital,” Dane asked, “or are they holding you prisoner?”

  Ellery was in the same room at the Swedish-Norwegian Hospital; he was in the same chair, his hockey goalie’s legs propped up. The casts looked new.

  “The legs weren’t knitting properly. They’ve had to monkey around with them.” Ellery seemed tired, restless. “It’s a good thing I have no serious psychological problems, or I’m sure I’d be thinking of myself as Toulouse-Lautrec.”

  “You poor man.” Lutetia stooped and kissed him on the brow.

  “Thank you, Mrs. McKell,” Ellery said. “That hasn’t been done to me for a very long time.”

  Dane was wondering what direction her behavior would take next when she said, “Well, I felt I hadn’t thanked you properly for what you did for my husband.”

  There was a silence. Then Ellery said, “We’ll have to do the same for you, won’t we? How do matters stand, Mr. McKell?” There was little to report and, of that little, little that was new. Barton was still talking cheerfully.

  “I don’t doubt an acquittal,” Ashton McKell said, convincing no one, perhaps, but his wife. “However, I’d like something better, Mr. Queen, than the equivalent of the Scotch verdict of Not Proven. I don’t want any loose ends.”

  “In this business, Mr. McKell,” Ellery said dryly - perhaps he was piqued by a certain commanding-officer quality in the McKell voice -”we generally take what we can get.”

  He began to talk to Lutetia of inconsequential things - the deadly sameness of hospital life, her taste in flowers (did she like the ones in the vase? would she take one and pin it on her dress?) - nothing, at first, to remind her that today was Friday, and that in three days she would be going on trial for murder.

  Gently and step by step (did he suspect? Dane thought) the invalid led Lutetia to describe once more the events of September 14th.

  “So after the servants left for the night, you were completely alone, Mrs. McKell?”

  “Completely.”

  “You didn’t leave the apartment, even for a few minutes? For a stroll?

  Some air?”

  No, she had not left the apartment for so much as thirty seconds. Of that she was positive. She had not even gone to the door, because no one had rung or knocked.

  “How about the telephone? Did you speak to anyone on the phone?” She hesitated. “Oh, dear.”

  “Then you did?”

  “I think I did.”

  “To whom?”

  “I can’t remember. Some man, I think it was.”

  “About what?”

  She smiled uncertainly. “I feel an utter fool. I just don’t recall. The only reason I remember a call at all is that I was half expecting my husband to phone from Washington.”

  “This man called you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure of that.”

  “I think I’m sure. I’d probably remember if I made a call to anyone.” Dane could have shaken her. “Mother, for heaven’s sake, think. This could be all - important. Who phoned you?”

  “Dane, don’t look at me that way. If I remembered, don’t you think I’d say? I wasn’t paying much attention to anything that evening. You know television. You just sit there in a vacuum… “ Yes, Dane thought, where you live most of the time.

  “… and then so much has happened since, it’s quite driven the details of that evening out of my head.”

  “Mrs. McKell, Dane is right,” Ellery said. “This could be of the utmost importance. You simply must try to recollect who called you. Was it during the early part of the evening, or late?” ‘

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was it a wrong number?”

  “I don’t believe so… “

  “Someone you knew well?”

  “Oh, I’m sure not. A stranger, I’m pretty sure of that.” This she said brightly, even anxiously, as at a minor triumph that might be snatched away from her. “I suppose that’s why I don’t remember. It couldn’t have been anything of personal importance.”

  “At the time, perhaps not. Now… In any event, you spent the entire evening watching TV - nothing else.”

  “That’s correct, Mr. Queen.”

  “I want you to keep thinking about that call, Mrs. McKell. It will come back to you.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Ellery sagged. He began to rub the bridge of his nose. “We seem to be hung up, don’t we? We have your word, Mrs. McKell, that you didn’t leave your apartment the entire time. Obviously, if you didn’t leave the apartment, you couldn’t have shot Miss Grey. The trouble is, we have only your word for it. Forgive me if I sound like a bookkeeper…

  “The problem gets down to the absolute need to substantiate Mrs.

  McKell’s story,” Ellery told the others. “How to do that is the heart of the business. Her only contact with the outside world, unless she can remember who phoned her, was by way of the television set. Too bad we don’t live in an era of two-way TV communication, as in the science-fiction stories. Well! We seem to have arrived exactly nowhere.” He sounded fagged; his whole personality appeared to have changed since their discussions of Ashton McKell’s predicament.

  “Let me keep thinking about this,” he said. “I’ll discuss it with my father, too.”

  “But he’s in charge of the police end of the case,” Dane protested.

  “Exactly.”

  It was an unsatisfactory session all around. They rose to go in an atmosphere of helpless gloom. The very air in the room smelled stale.

  They were at the door when Ellery suddenly said, “Oh, one thing. It probably won’t lead anywhere -”

  “Just tell me what it is, Mr. Queen,” said Ashton McKell.

  “I’m curious about Sheila Grey’s work. I’d like to see her fashion designs. What’s her establishment called?”

  “The House of Grey.”

  Ellery nodded. “Can you bring me her drawings, photos, advertisements - anything you can lay your hands on of her creative work, or get permission to borrow? Particularly recent material. But I would like to get an all-over picture, going years back, if necessary.”

  “Why, Mr. Queen?”

  “If I could answer that, I wouldn’t need the material. Say it’s a hunch.”

  “I don’t know if we can… “

  “I’ll get it,” Dane said. “I’ll go to work on it right away. Is that all, Mr.

  Queen?”

  “No, when you do bring me the material I’d appreciate Miss Walsh’s coming along with you. You can describe the annual collections to me from a woman’s point of view, Miss Walsh - I’m afraid I know as little as most men about women’s fashions. Will you do that?” They left him pulling at his lip, and squinting along the bulky line of his casts.

  * * *

  Sheila Grey had died intestate. Her estate fell to an only relative living in Kansas, a sister with a well-to-do invalid husband. Mrs. Potter had no need for money and no interest in The House of Grey. She had asked the staff to carry on for the time being, had signed powers of attorney, had given John Leslie $100 and the request that he “look after things” in the penthouse apartment; and immediately after the funeral she had flown back home.

  Dane told Leslie what it was they wanted.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Dane,” the doorman said. “Seems like it wouldn’t be right, me letting anybody take anything from Miss Grey’s apartment.

  Even you, sir. I could get into trouble.”

  “Suppose it was okay with the police,” Dane said. “Would you do it then, John?”

  Sure, sir.

  Dane called Ellery; Ellery called his father; Inspector Queen called Sergeant Velie. In the end, Dane got what Ellery wanted. As the Inspector said, “If he can borrow a defendant, I don’t see any harm in letting him have a look at some drawings.

  Sheila Grey had been systematic in her filing. With Sergeant Velie standing by, Dane and Judy went through the dead woman’s workroom in the penthouse. From 1957 on, everything was neatly in place, in chronological order. Under the sergeant’s eye they transferred the contents of the files into boxes they had brought for the purpose. Dane signed a receipt, the sergeant countersigned it, John Leslie went off happy, and at 10 a.m. Saturday, Dane and Judy presented themselves, cum boxes, in the Queen room at the Swedish-Norwegian Hospital.

  Ellery perked up at sight of them. A quick riffle through some of the material, and he gestured toward the walls. “I had my Valkyrie nurse buy up all the local stocks of Scotch tape. Let’s start to the right of the door and tape everything up in the proper time sequence… all around the room - drawings, photos, ads, what-have-you. And if the walls give out, spread them on the floor. You’ll note that I persuaded the medical powers to let me abandon my chair for a wheelchair. That’s for mobility.

  “Judy, you arrange. Dane, you tape. I’ll ask questions if and as the spirit - and my ignorance - move.”

  Judy set to work. She handed Dane the material pertaining to Sheila Grey’s first-shown collection, late in 1957, and he taped them to the wall.

  In a short time Judy was moved to voice her pleasure.

  “Aren’t these Lady Sheila things stunning,” she exclaimed. “Even if they are six years out of date.”

  “Lady Sheila?” Ellery said.

  “That’s the name of that particular collection.” Judy pointed. “Each showing has a special collection-name, you see. The next year, 1958, is called Lady Nella. To name a collection gives it more character than just a date. Here - 1959 -”

  “Lady Ruth,” Ellery read. “Mmm. Sheila was her own name, so that was natural enough. Nella sounds a bit fancy, but I suppose the exotic touch is an asset in this mysterious business. But why Ruth? Kind of Plain Jane, isn’t it? Although… yes, I see.”

  Dane, who did not, said, “See what, Mr. Queen?”

  “Ruth. Named after the matron of the same name in the Bible book of ditto, I’ll bet a ruffle. I don’t know what an archeologist would say, but you could put these dresses - some of them, anyway - on looo-Girls - looo in any self-respecting Hollywood Biblical extravaganza and I, for one, wouldn’t detect a false note. That beautifully ancient simplicity of drape and design. Right, Judy?”

  Judy said, “Oh, yes!” Her eyes were shining at the drawings of Sheila Grey’s i960 collection, named Lady Lorna D., with its subtle influences of Scotch color and pattern - gowns which were not so much kilts as kilty, hats which instantly evoked the tam-o’-shanter and Highland bonnet without being either, purses worn in the manner of sporrans but made from the same material as the gown, hinting of plaids and tartans.

  “Lady Lorna D.,” Ellery mused. “D. for Doone, I suppose. Was that Scottish? Well, it doesn’t matter. What’s next, Judy?” Next - as the drawings and photographs, the slick pages from Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, marched around the walls - came Lady Dulcea, 1961. Lady Dulcea educed nothing of the past or of far-off exotica; that collection had aimed at the future, and some of its designs might have gone well with a space helmet. Judy shook her head. “I don’t care much for these, compared with the others, I mean. I’m sure it wasn’t her most popular collection. Of course, Sheila Grey never had a style showing that could really be called a failure.”

  “Why Dulcea, I wonder?” asked Ellery. “Any notion, Judy?” Judy looked dubious. She was already absorbed in the 1962 collection, Lady Thelma, with its daring lines, bold colors, and generally theatrical air. “Isn’t it gorgeous? No wonder it was such a sensation.” Dane had used up all the available wall space, and the final group was accordingly spread out on the floor.

  “What’s this?” Ellery muttered. “This” was the collection Sheila Grey had been working on at the time of her death. In this one there were no photographs, no newspaper articles, no slick magazine illustrations, only drawings. Drawings in various stages of completion, from rough sketches through elaborate mock-ups to the almost-fully - delineated.

  “Doesn’t look as if she actually got to finish any of them - even these,” Ellery said. He was squinting hard.

  Judy picked up a drawing. “This one looks finished,” she said, handing it to him. “The only one in the batch.” At the bottom of the drawing was what was obviously intended to represent the 1963 collection’s name.

  In inked block capitals: LADY NORMA.

  “Well, that’s it,” said Judy.

  Ellery sat bent over in his wheelchair. He nodded slowly. “I wonder if her death could in any way be connected with the intense rivalries that exist in the world of fashion design. It’s hardly credible that any reputable salon would send a thug or a thief to break into the Grey apartment. But suppose some independent operator - a free-lance industrial spy - decided to snatch what he could and sell it somewhere… “ Dane remembered what Sheila had told him on the subject. Ellery listened closely, interrupting: “Did she name names?”

  “Did she seem seriously worried?” Then he dropped that line of inquiry and turned to Judy. But Judy could contribute nothing that had any relevance to the murder. Finally he wheeled his chair around the room, examining the material on the walls with the most concentrated care.He was still in silent communion with Sheila Grey’s handiwork when the blond nurse came in with a doctor.

  “I’m afraid you two will have to excuse me now.”

  “Shall we come back this afternoon?” Dane asked Ellery.

  “No, you’d better give me some time to digest all this.” In the corridor, Dane and Judy exchanged despairing glances. It would not have cheered them to know that in his hospital room Ellery wore very much the same look.

  * * *

  Judy and Dane met on Sunday. Neither found much to say. Finally Judy could stand it no longer.

  “Do you feel as discouraged as I do?”

  “I’ll match my dragging chin against yours any day.”

  “You know, we’re a couple of goops,” Judy said. “I don’t see that we’re accomplishing anything moping and comparing moods. Why don’t we have another look at Sheila Grey’s apartment? Maybe we overlooked something.”